Famous Writers’ Sleep Habits vs. Literary Productivity, Visualized

by Maria Popova The early bird gets the Pulitzer … sort of. “In both writing and sleeping,” Stephen King observed in his excellent meditation on the art of “creative sleep” and wakeful dreaming, “we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.” Over the years, in my endless fascination with daily routines, I found myself especially intrigued by successful writers’ sleep habits — after all, it’s been argued that “sleep is the best (and easiest) creative aphrodisiac” and science tells us that it impacts everything from our moods to our brain development to our every waking moment. I found myself wondering whether there might be a correlation between sleep habits and literary productivity. The challenge, of course, is that data on each of these variables is hard to find, hard to quantify, or both. Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month.

Mitch MitchellJohn Ronald "Mitch" Mitchell (9 July 1947 – 12 November 2008) was an English drummer who was best known for his work in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Biography[edit] Early career[edit] The Jimi Hendrix Experience[edit]Illustrator Sophie Blackall on Subversive Storytelling, Missed Connections, and Optimismby Maria Popova What Aldous Huxley’s misogyny has to do with children’s books, darkness, and modern love. Australian illustrator Sophie Blackall remains best-known for her warm, wistful, and whimsical Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found (public library) — a visual paean to modern love by way of illustrated Craigslist missed connections, which you might recall as one of the best art and design books of 2011. If you live in New York, you’ve likely seen and admired her heart-warming subway artwork; and if you have a taste for obscure children’s books by famous adult authors, you might know and love her Aldous Huxley adaptation, one of more than thirty children’s books she has illustrated. In a recent episode of her fantastic Design Matters show, Debbie Millman talks to Blackall about the difference between an artist and an illustrator, what makes children’s storytelling particularly exciting, the origin and afterlife of the missed connections project, and more.

Over 100 Incredible Infographic Tools and Resources (Categorized)This post is #6 in DailyTekk’s famous Top 100 series which explores the best startups, gadgets, apps, websites and services in a given category. Total items listed: 112. Time to compile: 8+ hours.

Creation: Ancient Indian Origin Myths, Brought to Life in a Breathtaking Illustrated Cosmogonyby Maria Popova Consummate visual storytelling about life, death, the rhythms of time, and the beginning of art. “We don’t need to credit an all-seeing God with the creation of life and matter,” Douglas Rushkoff wrote in contemplating consciousness, “to suspect that something wonderfully strange is going on in the dimension we call reality.” And we don’t have to believe in such a god to appreciate the beautiful and imaginative ways in which the origin myths of the world’s various spiritual traditions capture this wonderful strangeness — from our earliest depictions of the universe to the marvelous mythic creatures that populate our legends.

Greenpeace Activists, Pussy Riot Likely To Be Freed By Russian Amnesty BillMOSCOW (AP) — Russia's parliament on Wednesday amended an amnesty bill to include the 30-member crew of a Greenpeace ship detained after a protest at a floating oil rig in the Arctic, meaning that charges against the activists are likely to be dropped and they would ultimately be freed. The West has been highly critical of Russia's human rights record. The carefully tailored bill, which would also release members of the Pussy Riot punk band, has been largely perceived as the Kremlin's attempt to soothe criticism ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi next year. Opposition lawmakers argued the bill doesn't go nearly far enough to free political prisoners. The State Duma adopted final amendments to the bill which gives amnesty to a range of Russians who haven't committed violent crimes, mainly minors, invalids, veterans, pregnant women, and women with children.

What's Your Type? on BehanceWhat's Your Type?Soho Factory Exhibition We were invited to take part in typography art exhibition What's Your Type? which took place in Soho Factory, Warsaw, Poland.15 New Extremely Creative InfographicsWith the help of evolution and progress, people’s lives become easier day by day. Today everything is simpler than it used to be in the past. Let’s take information for example.The Daily Routines of Famous WritersBy Maria Popova UPDATE: These daily routines have now been adapted into a labor-of-love visualization of writers’ sleep habits vs. literary productivity. Kurt Vonnegut’s recently published daily routine made we wonder how other beloved writers organized their days. So I pored through various old diaries and interviews — many from the fantastic Paris Review archives — and culled a handful of writing routines from some of my favorite authors. Enjoy. Ray Bradbury, a lifelong proponent of working with joy and an avid champion of public libraries, playfully defies the question of routines in this 2010 interview:

Ava Gardner : “Yes I am very beautiful, but morally, I stink”In the London Review of Books (LRB, Vol 28, No 17, dated 17 September 2006), Michael Newton, a professor of Literature at University College, London, reviews Ava Gardner's biography by Lee Server (Ava Gardner, Bloomsbury, 551pp, 2006). Considering Ava Gardner's wild character, it is interesting to note that the reviewer is an expert on those we call in France "les enfants-loups", the "children raised by wolves, monkeys and wild dogs". Newton wrote a book called Savage Girls and Wild Boys : A History of Feral Children (Picador, 2004).Free Font Kingthings Trypewriter by KingsthingsThis license can also be found at this permalink: I am constantly working on all my fonts so these may well not be the last versions, please check my web site at: for updates and new fonts. I hope you enjoy using my fonts and I would appreciate any feedback from you regarding missing characters, things that would be useful, bits that don't work and so on. Also, please let me know if you have downloaded it for use on a Mac - I have had some reports of Mac versions not working… Please email me at: kevinking@kingthings.freeserve.co.uk

100 Diagrams That Changed the WorldSince the dawn of recorded history, we’ve been using visual depictions to map the Earth, order the heavens, make sense of time, dissect the human body, organize the natural world, perform music, and even concretize abstract concepts like consciousness and love. 100 Diagrams That Changed the World (public library) by investigative journalist and documentarian Scott Christianson chronicles the history of our evolving understanding of the world through humanity’s most groundbreaking sketches, illustrations, and drawings, ranging from cave paintings to The Rosetta Stone to Moses Harris’s color wheel to Tim Berners-Lee’s flowchart for a “mesh” information management system, the original blueprint for the world wide web. It appears that no great diagram is solely authored by its creator. Most of those described here were the culmination of centuries of accumulated knowledge. Most arose from collaboration (and oftentimes in competition) with others. Christianson offers a definition:

Famous Writers on the Creative Benefits of Keeping a Diaryby Maria Popova Reflections on the value of recording our inner lives from Woolf, Thoreau, Sontag, Emerson, Nin, Plath, and more. “You want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you,” Madeleine L’Engle counseled in her advice to aspiring writers.Texas judge, forced to resign after texting prosecutors during trial, now running for district attorneyBy George ChidiSunday, December 15, 2013 22:01 EDT Elizabeth Coker agreed in October to resign her seat as a judge in Polk County, Texas, after an investigation into text messages she sent to prosecutors giving advice during trials. Her resignation became effective Dec. 6. Her campaign to become the district attorney of Polk County became effective Dec. 8. “I am running for Polk County Criminal District Attorney!!!”

Howard Hughes punched Ava Gardner in the face so she smashed an onyx ashtray over his headBy Peter Evans Published: 00:37 GMT, 24 June 2013 | Updated: 08:27 GMT, 24 June 2013 On Saturday, in the first part of a major series, we revealed in Ava Gardner’s own words how her marriage to Mickey Rooney was plagued by his infidelities.